Identify yourself!

"identity politics" , the Mexican election, and US media

Chavela Vargas, the irrascible cantina singer, and sometimes “iconic” Mexican... having been born not inn Mexico, once snarled “A Mexican can be born any fuckin' place she wants”. Fair enough, but to be President, one has to be born here, and have at least one parent also born here. Which more than satisfies the requirements for the two most likely candidates, Xochitl Galvéz and Claudia Sheinbaum.

Well, OK, Sheinbaum is not OFFICIALLY the candidate for the Morena coalition yet... that is to be decided later this week, but all polls (https://www.as-coa.org/articles/poll-tracker-contenders-mexicos-2024-presidential-vote) point that way. And to an easy win for Sheinbaum.

BUT... with the elections ten months away, and anything can happen between now and then... Galvez – as candidate for the PAN-PRI-PRD (the old guard) coalition has been marketed with some success as the “authentic” Mexican.

Galvez, having indigenous heritage (specifically, Otomí), and the baggage of a past flirtation with Trotkism, is an unusual choice, given that her party, PAN, has been associated not just with the radical right, but close ties to European “identiy” parties, like Spain's VOX. Sheinbaum, the socialist/leftist presumptive candidate, is from the intellectual elite (both her parents, as is she, are academics) and... besides not-Iberian European heritage (her father was born in Lithuania), is Jewish.

The election may come down to something we normally associate more with US politics: “identiy”.

While, certainly, “identiy politics” has played a role before, it has usually been in term of class struggle rather than who is more “authentically” Mexican. The parties have rules on gender parity, and the legislatures guarantee a certain percentage of seats to women, ethnic minorities, and LGBTQ+ members. That is, as COMMUNITIES ... mostly with the same results we've seen in the US. The elites within discrete communities... identifiable as member of a sub-group, are also part of that smaller group... the social elites who have the access to the resources to obtain high office... and, while perhaps responsive to the broader communal interests of their identity group, may or may not represent that group as a whole. Barak Obama certainly did not reflect the wide variety of African-Americans, even African-American elites – Clarence Thomas and Cornell West are as much “authentic” African Americans as he is.

That the “conseervative” (or at least, more aligned with US and Mexican financial interests) candidate is indigenous, and the “dangerous lefty” of the usual Euro background (like the very pro-US Vicente Fox) has excited some of the “usual suspects” in the US media.. The “rags to riches” sstory is just too American to pass up, and as a business executive (never mind the questions about the source of those riches), who speaks positively of the US-Mexican business connections, naturally more “like one of us.. or US). And, while having had a minor cabinet position (Minister of Indigenous Affairs) in the Fox Adminstration, and one term as a delegaion chief (borough president) of a wealthy district in Mexico City and is presently a Senator (one of 124) is presented as the “everywoman”

Sheinbaum, who enjoys a high income (about 65,000 USD as Governor of Mexico City, as well as her income from her work as a distinguished professor, her cut of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize money as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and a long trajectory (going back to High School) of political activity. But one would be hard-pressed to see her as a working class heroine.

After they get over the fact that both candidates are women … and a lot of punditry on what it means that it subverts the myth of “macho” Mexico (never mind that PAN had a woman candidate for President in 2012, and nearly every country in Latin America either has elected a woman head of state, or had a mainstream party candidate for the office), one can expect the conversation or wishful thinking will turn to questions not so much as which one captures the womens' vote as to which one is seen as the “real” Mexican. Although the US media is unlikely to be so crude as to resort to anti-Semitism (as Vicente Fox recently did) they can be expected to focus on Sheinbaum's “identity” as a “white Mexican”.

That's something I've seen before: when Lazaro Cardenas Batel (enjoying the name recognition of his grandfather... Lazaro Cardenas del Rio, to the Mexican left what Franklin Roosevelt is to US Democrats, or Ronald Reagan to Republicans) was running for governor of Michocan, US media focused on his opponent's attacks on Cardenas' wife Myra Coffingy. Not, for what the opponent was hinting at... that Coinguey was born and raised in Cuba and a Communist... ergo, making Cardenas too “radical” or under Communist influence, but – or so US media reported – because she was of African descent. Or, when AMLO was running against Felipe Calderón, it was noted that Calderón was darker skinned than AMLO... as if that was an important factor.

Yes, Mexicans can be racist, and sexist, but they are also classist... in thegood and bad sense of the term. That one candidate is FROM the working class, but represents the party of the bourgeoisie , and the other is FROM the bourgeoisie and fronts the party of the working class is what Mexicans will be focused on... not the “identities” so dear to our neighbors to the north.